ÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ Assistant Professor Awarded STaR Fellowship
Julie McNamara
- January 11, 2016
ÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ Assistant Professor of Teacher Education Julie McNamara is one of just 32 early-career mathematics educators in higher education selected to be a 2016 STaR fellow.
“I am very excited about this opportunity,” McNamara said. “I've looked over the list of previous STaR fellows and am honored to be a part of this prestigious group.”
STaR — Service, Teaching and Research — is a program initiated through a National Science Foundation grant. It was designed, in part, to respond to the shortage of people with doctorates in mathematics education.
Over the course of the year-long program, fellows network via electronic means, and they attend a summer institute and a follow-up session in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE).
“I am looking forward to networking with other math educators,” McNamara said. “Being the lone math educator in the Department of Teacher Education can be kind of lonely and limiting. I'm excited about the prospect of learning from and with other junior faculty.”
To date, 207 early career mathematics educators working at institutions of higher education have completed the program.
“We are very pleased that Dr. McNamara has been awarded the STaR Fellowship,” said Dr. Eric Engdahl, department chair of teacher education. “It recognizes her leadership in the field of math education, which has already been demonstrated through her work with Dr. Julia Olkin in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. She has also been working with the Castro Valley Unified School District on the New Generation of Educators for California project supported by the CSU Chancellor's Office and the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and was recently awarded a California Elementary Mathematics and Science Professional Learning Initiative grant from the California Department of Education.”